1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of the production of superconductor ceramic filament or filaments.
2. Description of the Prior Art
As the superconductor material, metals, ceramics and organic compositions have been known. Among them, the ceramic superconductor material has become important. Especially, a ceramic oxide superconductor having layers Perovskeit (K.sub.2 Ni F.sub.4) type structure has been known. The oxide ceramic superconductor is produced by mixing oxide powder first followed by pressing and sintering. The ceramic superconductor of the kind mentioned above can show a critical temperature of higher than 30K.
Although the ceramic superconductor can be shaped into blocks or sheets, the ceramic superconductor obtained through the processing mentioned above is fragile and therefore, it is difficult to produce superconductor filaments having good flexibility.
Beside the foregoing, there has been conventionally used such a method of the production of the superconductor filament that superconductor material such as NbTi is inserted in a copper pipe and the copper pipe is subjected to heating or hydraulic pressure so that one or more superconductor filaments can be produced.
However, the conventional method of the production of the superconductor filaments is limited to cases where the superconductor material is provided with a high workability. Therefore, the conventional method can not be applied to the production of the superconductor filament using the ceramic superconductor which is fragile.
The ceramic superconductor material has such an advantage that the critical temperature is relatively high.
In order to make use of the advantage of the ceramic superconductor mentioned above, it has been strongly desired to develop a new method for the production of the ceramic superconductor filaments.